A vicious war of words has started between Congress and BJP has started over Finance Minister P Chidambaram vicious comment on Narendra Modi who is also Prime Ministerial candidate of BJP.

Finance Minister Chidambaram said Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, is staging a “fake encounter with facts” while claiming about 8.4 percent growth during Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government between 1998 and 2004.

Narendra Modi is reported to have said that the growth rate during Vajpayee government was 8.4 percent. Nothing can be further from the truth,” .

The use of phrase staging fake encounter became a contentious issue for BJP as it was made in the context of CBI investigating Gujarat Government in fake encounter cases.

Yashwant Sinha of BJP who was also Finance Minister in NDA government countered P Chidambaram allegation with two phrase

“Terrorism with facts and Statistical Jugglery”.

BJP hole a press conference to counter P Chidambaram out of line allegations. Ravi Shankar Prasad National spokesperson of BJP briefed media in the press conference.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCCGaU8-C7M

Main points of press conference

-The Finance Minister Sh. P Chidambaram’s statements on the observation of Sh. Narendra Modi on growth rate; is not only factually incorrect being economical with truth but is a glaring case of resorting to fake encounters with facts. This is the expression he has used against Sh. Modi but on the contrary it squarely applies to him.

- When the NDA Government led by Sh. Atal Bihari Vajpayee came to power in the 1998 our growth rate was 4.8%. With good leadership, sound policy initiative, good governance and inspiring performance when the NDA demitted office in May 2004 it has left an extraordinary growth rate of 8.5% on a very sound foundation of Indian economy.

-This was exemplary because it was achieved under very difficult circumstances and very unfavourable global atmosphere. It is well known that there was international sanction by nearly all the country of the world in the wake of Pokhran – II nuclear explosion. There was a Kargil War, the explosive East Asian crisis in the year 1999-2000, the massive earthquake in Gujarat, the serious drought in 2001-02 and other natural crisis.

-The NDA left a current account deficit of +2.3% which has become a critical -5%(approx).

-The robust infrastructure sector a very shining area of growth in the NDA regime, like National Highway Construction, Telecom, Power, Real Estate all has come almost to a halt because of rampant corruption, policy paralysis and favouritism.

-The inflation particularly food inflation shows no sign of coming down. The sliding value of rupee in comparison to dollar has made the condition of Indian economy very critical.

-The record also shows that nearly 6 crore Jobs were created during NDA regime. The record of UPA in job creation is pathetic. In the manufacturing sector alone the employment increase from 44 million to nearly 56 million between 2000-01 and 2004-05. However, employment in manufacturing sector itself was reduced by 5 million between 2004-05 and 2009-10 (UPA regime). This fact is acknowledged in paragraph 13.1, volume II Twelfth Five Year Plan, Planning Commission.

-Mr. Chidambaram needs to explain that if Indians are reluctant to invest in India how would the foreigners be interested? All productive investment in the country has virtually been killed. There is crisis of credibility, lack of trust in Government, stinking corruption and gross absence of good governance which has led to a situation that the strong foundation of 8.5% growth rate of the NDA regime in 2003-04 has come to less than 5%. Mr. Chidambaram has no answer hence he is talking of average to hide the gross failure of his government.